Marble Cake and Marshmallow Fondant Recipe

Easy
Budget Friendly

Ingredients

FOR THE CAKE~
1 ¾ cups cake flour
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
½ cup unsalted butter, softened at room temp
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs, room temp
1 tsp vanilla extract
cup buttermilk, room temp
¼ cup cocoa powder, plus 1 tbsp
¼ cup plus 2 tbsp boiling water
FOR THE FONDANT~
¼ c unsalted butter, softened or as much needed
16 ounces/1 pound white mini-marshmallows
2 to 5 tablespoons water
2 pounds icing or powdered sugar

Preparation

Step 1

Preheat oven to 350° F. Keep aside a 9×5 inch loaf pan, greased and floured or spray with nonstick spray .

Whisk together cake flour, baking powder and salt.
In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy.

Add eggs one at time, scraping down sides of bowl when needed.

Mix in vanilla.

Add in flour mixture, alternating with buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour, until all ingredients are combined into one smooth batter

In the now empty bowl that was used to whisk flour, mix cocoa powder with the 1/4 cup plus 2 tbsp of boiling water and stir until smooth. Add 1/3 of the cake batter to this and combine well.

Alternate and scoop the batters in a checkerboard pattern, in two layers- chocolate-vanilla-chocolate. Place brown over yellow, yellow over brown when doing second layer.

Swirl the batters with a skewer/knife in zigzags and figure eights for a pretty marbled effect.

Bake 40- 60 minutes, until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Leave in pan for 10 minutes, then invert onto wire rack to let cool.

You can leave plain, frost with buttercream, ganache , fancy the whole show up. Your choice. It's all good.

Notes:
If you use salted butter, like I do, omit the salt in cake ingredients.
For the half dome part of the soccer ball cake, I scooped one batter into the other(brown into yellow).

Step 2

FOR THE FONDANT~

Have softened butter ready in a widemouthed bowl (for your hands to easily reach )and keep aside.

Place the marshmallows and two tbsp of the water in a very large greased microwave-safe bowl, and microwave on high for 30 seconds and melt the marshmallows. Continue at 30 second intervals, stirring between each 30 seconds, until marshmallows are melted, gooey and completely smooth.

In the bowl itself, place 1/2 of the confectioners' sugar on top of the marshmallow mixture(if your bowl is not big enough, all of this can be done on the countertop). Using a well greased wooden label or greased hands, mix this until roughly combined. Mixture will be very stiff.

Rub your hands thoroughly, in between fingers, backs of hands, with butter mixture, and turn out marshmallow dough onto counter dusted liberally with powdered sugar. Place more sugar on top of this sticky mixture, one cup at time and begin kneading the dough. As you knead, the dough will become workable and pliable. If it does dry and tear, add water-teaspoon at at time- until smooth.

Add confectioner's sugar by cupfuls to the mixture as needed. You may not need all the sugar. Continue kneading until the fondant is smooth and no longer sticky to the touch, 5 to 10 minutes.

Form the fondant into a ball, coat it with a light film of butter mixture and wrap tightly in plastic wrap and place/seal in Ziplock bag squeezing out all air. Refrigerate overnight.

When ready to use, allow the fondant to come to room temperature ( if really hard, microwave at 60% power for a few 30 second intervals until soft) and roll it out onto a flat surface lightly greased with butter/shortening or dusted with cornstarch, sometimes both. I like to coat my work surface with only butter, but if gets "slippery" I add a few sprinkles of cornstarch.

Coloring fondant~

You can separate and color the fondant before it goes into the refrigerator, though sometimes the colors get denser as they sit. I prefer to color as and when I need to use it. Bring to room temperature and knead in a little coloring at a time, using a toothpick. If you're using different colors, wash hands thoroughly between or use food grade gloves as colors will transfer from hands.Wilton gel food colors and Amerigel are the ideal choices when coloring fondant, though with smaller pieces of dough, I've used the liquid drops too- dough consistency may get sticky/soft with it so you have to be careful when/if using liquid coloring.